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“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” ― Ernest Hemingway

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7 December 2014

Sigh.......Savannakhet

18th - 20th November 2014

It took a good six hours to travel from Pakse to Savannahket. The trip was pretty uneventful apart from Jono having his toes pecked to death by a chicken in a box below his seat and Will having a stare out with a duck (don't worry I didn't loose a game of poker to a group of dogs).

We spent two nights at Leena Guesthouse. It's a great budget option with warmish showers and good beds. The food they provide is limited but there are plenty of good eateries around town. Sadly we probably stayed in Savannakhet a night too long, because there is nothing to do. It's a cultural, historical desert with little character distinguishing it from anywhere else in Laos. It should be twinned with Slough or Scunthorpe.

Savannahkhet Town

Guard dog at Leena's Guesthouse

I lie there is one historical sight to distract you from utter boredom, the incredibly "interesting" Dinosaur Museum. This concrete block exhibits a "vast"collection of ten or so fossilised dinosaur parts discovered in five pits around the surrounding area. The size and condition of these specimens are impressive but it's the way there presented that's disappointing. The whole exhibit is like sorting through a kitchen draw full of random crap. I think I even saw a radiator bleeding key and a leaflet from the local BNP candidate, or maybe I was dreaming.
To stop visitors being totally pissed off with paying a small fee for visiting this utterly pathetic collection there are additional cabinets full off donated specimens, mostly from Bedfordshire, England. Now I worked on landfill sites around Bedfordshire for two and a half years. I had a large collection of ammonite and belemnite fossils which I found in the clay on my office desk. What I was not expecting was travelling to the other side of the world to see a collection of creatures found in a seam of Oxfordshire clay. So if your from Central/Southern England and don't fancy seeing a museum full of rocks you can find in your garden don't bother visiting.

Welcome to "Dinosaur Museum". Don't worry nothing's going to rampage around town

I know this is a quick write up but there is literally nothing else apart from a few nice cafés so if you have made it to Savannakhet and your reading this for advice on where to go.....head to the bus station and get the next ticket out of here. It took us two days to figure this out before we made tracks for Tha Khaek.